My Mobile Phone History

Phlogging I have discovered is using your mobile phone to blog. Finally there is a good use for those cameras on the mobile phone. I hate my current mobile but have loved most of the others I have owned for a variety of reasons.

When I think back over them I have had a varied life as a mobile owner. I was the first one of my friends to get one, much to their derision. I was the first in my family to have one, much to their derision also. 90% of them have now eaten their hats and fallen into the trap of getting one. Only after you get one (and usually in a matter of weeks) do you realise that it is indespensible and can't understand how you managed before.

I worked with a girl at Kingsway College in 1995 who had a mobile phone - relatively few people had one in those days but she was German and moved house a lot so it suited her lifestyle. At that time I was probably out more than I was in. So when I read an article about how we must embrace modern technology or be left behind (technologically)... I decided it validated me wanting to own one. I justified it to all and sundry (because that was necessary at that time) by the nature of my lifestyle - the terrestrial telephone locates a place, therefore they are useful to communicate with people who are fairly static (work or home), the mobile phone locates a person whever they may be. Suddenly I could be at work, or on my way to meet someone out, or at the pub, or going to the cinema, or on the way home or in any number of other places and people could call me to tell me the plans - great for a person like me who needs to be in a state of constant motion. So it facilitated my hectic social whirlwind life.

I wanted to share with you a history of the phone handsets I have had and went in search of a museum of the mobile phone. Sadly I couldn't find one - the design museum may have a physical one but it doesn't have a virtual one, I forgot to look at the V&A but they may have some. So I looked for old handsets, old designs, etc etc. And gradually all the models came back to me, slowly slowly. So I present to you:

Harriet's Mobile Phone History (to date)



So from left to right:

• Motorola Flare Plus: My first phone and the smallest one on the market at the time (circa 1995). It felt compact and lighter than the others but was a heavyweight by today's standards. BIG battery. We mostly used them for making phone calls in those days - I can't even remember if there was texting then. The handset came free with my brand new number and tarif (didn't have much cash so didn't even think about buying a more expensive one) - the tarif was something called One 2 One Bronze (I only remember this cos I looked back into my phone paperwork folder and discovered my first service agreement). I had that phone for a good year and a half before it started to wear out and I had to carry the charger with me everywhere because it ran out of batteries within a few hours - they were phones then and didn't seem so disposable. Towards the end of its life I met the boyfiend in July 1997.



• Ericcson T10: For the second phone I chose the smallest on the market. The boyfiend had a nokia banana phone and nothing was quite so space age as that at the time but this phone had a little flip that protected the keypad and was actually tiny(ish). The first time I saw someone talking on a hands free headset was when I was coming back from the toilet at Kingsway and a man was at the end of the corridor walking around in circles talking to himself gesticulating wildly (he looked hilarious but I was fascinated). Sometime during this period texting really began to get a grip in earnest and the T10 was useless for this purpose - the screen could hold one row of digits only - a full telephone number wouldn't even show on the screen unless it was short. And I think this is when they stopped being phones and became mobiles - with accessories and desirability.



• Motorola Timeport: I got this phone because I was travelling to the USA and needed a triband phone. After I got it out of the shop I never liked it - it was a boring boring phone.



• NEC db2000: I loved this phone, it had a beautiful shiny chrome-like fascia. It had a large screen and could recognise if you were typing a phone number or a word. I also started always using a hands free set with this phone. I have never stopped using them since - so much more convenient to not have to hold it up to your ear, even if you do look like a crazy person. I took it with me to South Africa when I went to visit Bails (she was living in Cape Town with a South African man who she thought was the love of her life - shortlived though it was). On the beach on Christmas day a wave crashed down on us suddenly and soaked us through. The connectors got wet and eventually turned green. So I had to get them to replace it, I kept the replacement one until I was offered a free upgrade.



• Nokia 8210: This little red number truly was small and light and like a metallic red car. They offered it to me on a plate - have it for free... So I did and I loved it. It may still be my most favourite phone to date. And the trauma of when it started to wear out was unbearable - but the screen started to wear out - I had to press the LSD to get it to show the numbers and finally, finally it was too much and I had to get another phone. But what to get? The design was unsurpassable. New ones were all flippant and colourful without taste, childish or as if the design was paying homage to the brick phones of old. But eventually I had no choice I had to get something.



• Nokia 8310: It lit up nicely when it rang, it was small enough. But, but... it didn't have it. What the it was I couldn't tell you - the colour? I bought a new red fascia and that went some way to solving the problem but not the whole way. It was bland, common as muck.



• Nokia 7210: So Bails was upgraded to this 7210. It had a colour screen. What a leap forward, and a detachable camera! And I wanted one. In a MUST HAVE moment I bought one and a camera. But I hate this phone. Its colours are pretty and it owes it design to the 8210 but its turquoise (although it does match my PDA) and has WHITE on it. Phones at the time were rubbish and this was good. But then the Seimens SL55 came, and those fashion phones by sony and I realised I had made a mistake. But it was too late. I was tied for year to this not-all-that phone. And as a consequence I am abusing it by not looking after it properly (I don't mean to but I can't help it).

So the point of this whole story (and well done if you read it all) is that I am trying to get my phone camera pictures onto the phlog I have set up. Do you think this is easy? NO F****** WAY! I've been on the phone to the service provider. We've resaved the settings. We've done a hard reboot. We've sent it three different ways. And now customer services is shut. So I'm waiting patiently until tomorrow to have words with them. But once its WORKING I'll link to it.